Defining Indie

Many people today claim that the indie game movement is the most important transition this industry has seen, and given the rise of the Web and digital downloads, both on PC and console, it is safe to say that there has never been a better time for independent video game development.

But what really makes a game indie? It’s a slippery slope trying to define indie gaming since many people feel like there’s still no strict definition for what makes a game indie. At definition found in dictionary defines indie games as following. Independent video games (commonly referred to as indie games) are video games created by individuals or small teams without video game publisher financial support and often focus on innovation and rely on digital distribution.

By sticking to the exact words of this definition, then Valve are technically an indie developer, since they are largely self-published, and have no one pulling their strings. We certainly need a clearer definition than this one.

Even developers themselves don’t seem to agree on what really makes an indie game. There are developers who think that to be truly independent, you have to be creating artistic experiments with mechanics that have never been experienced before. Others think it’s a mindset where you’re not letting money, marketing, and big business cloud the vision for your game.

In what they all seem to agree is that the term is tossed around right and left without too much care for what it actually means. This great argument of indie-ness has lead us to investigate the term “indie” , its uses, and the most commonly accepted meanings of the word. We’ll talk about a few games: what makes them different and why they are (or aren’t) indie.

What is not an indie game

Why Modern Warfare 3 s not indie: This is an easy one. Clearly Modern Warfare 3 is not an indie game just like Ironman 2 is not an independent film. An immense team of people at Infinity Ward developed Modern Warfare 3. Activision Blizzard, a huge, publicly traded publisher, owns the studio and paid for all the funding, salaries, and marketing for the game upfront.